New Research Finds Home Country is a Top Three Business Stakeholder 

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COVID-19 super-charged conversations among corporate leaders about the role of business in the world.  And as businesses rethink, reevaluate and reassess their role in a post-COVID world and heightened geopolitical competition, how they communicate their value and values to all relevant stakeholders is paramount.

New Research Finds Home Country is a Top Three Business Stakeholder

Weber Shandwick’s Geopolitical Strategy & Risk Group uncovers a powerful new dimension to the role of a global business today in its report, Home Country as Stakeholder: The Rising Geopolitical Risk for Business Leaders. In partnership with KRC Research, the group surveyed executives’ perceptions of the relationship between a multinational business and its home country across 12 countries in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Among the findings, we reveal:

 

  • Nearly six in 10 multinational business executives (58%) say their company’s home country is a “very” important stakeholder to their business, second only to customers (63%) and equivalent to shareholders.
  • Fifty-six percent (56%) of executives rate national security as “very” important to their companies’ business decisions, surpassing diversity and inclusion, the protection of human rights, ESG, and climate change as important decision-making factors with 50% or fewer of all executives citing each of these as “very” important.
  • 87% of executives agree – 44% “strongly” agree – their companies should be prepared to take a more public position on geopolitical issues over the next five years
Home country is no longer an unspoken stakeholder. As corporate leaders reset their strategies for a new geopolitical and post-COVID era, they are considering how they deliver and communicate value to their home country stakeholder. Executives are saying corporate responsibility includes national responsibility, and leaders must plan accordingly.

Michelle Giuda

Executive Vice President of Geopolitical Strategy & Risk, Weber Shandwick

View the full Home Country as Stakeholder report below with more on our findings and recommendations on how companies can build reputation resilience. Click here to download a PDF of the report or here to download a one-pager on our findings.